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Has an extraterrestrial invaded your home this May? When college-age sons and daughters come back home and re-feather your empty nest to be with you for the summer, it is a readjustment for everyone in the household. Each family must deal with its new challenges individually, but one reality is certain: no matter where the recent graduates eventually hang their hats, earning that sheepskin elevates degree holders in everyone’s eyes.

Stepping reverently to the cadence of Pomp and Circumstance? You’re one of millions donning cap and gown and graduating from a high school, college, or university. If it’s an institution of higher learning and you’re singular, you’re morphing from matriculant to alumna (female) or alumnus (male). If you’re plural, you’re collectively alumnae (female) or alumni (male or female graduates). For those etymology inquirers, all four “alum” words derive from Latin’s alere meaning “nourish.”

Along with graduation come traditions and diplomas. Along with diplomas (and diploma frames) come a distinct and formal identifier of the school…its seal. Traditionally, college diplomas have a school seal, very often with a Latin motto, affixed to it.

Graduation season is upon us, and at many schools across the country, the process of choosing a commencement speaker was a daunting one for school administrators: should they select an individual—possibly someone who’s relatively unknown—who has changed the world in a meaningful way? Someone who can motivate and inspire graduates? Or should they go with a big name speaker who can be counted on to entertain and give a great speech?

One of the first of many milestones in a young person's life, college graduation is a rite of passage marked by numerous traditions, many of them centuries old. While graduates at nearly every college and university will don a a cap and gown—itself a centuries old tradition dating back to the 12th century—many of today’s institutions of learning have adopted their own traditions, steeped in symbolism and faithfully repeated year after year.